oh, sorry. hmm? i'll try not to leave my stuff lying around. no big deal, we're all adults. when i was your age, i was married... and i already had a kid. larry, how are things with you and megan? oh, going beautifully, i think. i mean, we're spending all of our time apart, so it's a little difficult to assess. does that address your question? matt: david. look, these weld points? they mean that the original front grill was replaced with this one. so this grill used to be on a different car? exactly, and when i looked a little closer, i found, ta-da! traces of hair and blood in the crevices. but not from this recent crash. dna matches two victims of an unsolved hit-and-run that happened three years ago. that's daniel and caren kaufman. nothing was found at the crime scene. this is the first evidence in this case. charlie: i don't think kyle clippard did that 'cause he would've been 14 years old at the time. three years ago, this grill was on a car involved in a fatality.

right now it's on a second car, also in a fatal accident? that's some kind of coincidence. not if street racing was involved in both cases. galuski: there's one thing about street racing-- those dudes crash. oh, dr. galuski? i'm sure you could make your point without getting grease stains all over the fbi's nice office. do you know what this is? uh, it's a differential. it's a... okay, so you know that when a car makes a turn, the wheels don't all turn at the same speed. because of a phenomenon related to centripetal force. you know, when a car turns, it's on a circular path. so the farther from the center of the circle, the greater the distance traveled. it's like on a carousel where a horse on the outside travels further than one on the inside, so it's got to go faster, same with the drive wheels on a car. the outside wheels travel further, to keep up with the inside tires they have to spin faster. if a car didn't have a differential,

the outside tires couldn't keep up. they'd be dragged across the pavement. is there something unique about this one? lsd. limited slip differential. two-way clutch type used by drifters. drifters are street racers who take high-speed turns, and then they let the rear wheels slide out on purpose. and this one's an ox gekko ultra lock. only a few places you can get one. and i'm guessing, ray-ray, that you know a few of those places? ♪ looking for a dominator fuel injection system. that's illegal on california streets. how about an ultra lock two-way? strike two-- ultra lock's not distributed in the states. i guess we came to the wrong place. hey, hold up. that's not to say that the ultra lock

can't be bought. can we take one home today? just stay right there. actually, how about you stay right there. fbi. (clanging) hey, get back here! get down! get over here! hey idiot, this guy's with the fbi. where you gonna go? come on, man. i just work here. huh? they tell me to sell the stuff. is that what your boss is going to say? okay, so i make a little on the side. but you don't want me. oh, we don't, huh? no, i'm a nobody. i'll give you the guy who sells to me. he sells to, like, half a dozen shops. tell me this, did you sell an ultra lock to this kid? okay, yeah. yeah, three weeks ago. that's awesome. come on. david: did you know your son like to go to street racing meets? that he bought auto parts designed for racing? no. mm-hmm.

he told me he was out with friends. that they went to movies, other kids' houses. i trusted my son. what if you're wrong about kyle? you don't know why that car crashed, or why kyle was in it. somebody tried to kill my son. we don't know his side of it. he can't tell us what happened. colby: hey, megan. i got something. so street racers are into posting their videos of their races online. i figure if our crash had anything to do with that, it might be worth checking a few web sites. i found this video posted a couple hours ago. girl: oh, my god. someone filmed the accident? yeah. and they couldn't have been more than 25 feet north of the site. this is all that was posted online, but i'm thinking there might be more. oh, my...

colby: hey, nitrogurl. that's you, isn't it? what you girls looking at? oh, sweet-- that's really nice camerawork. the coffee shop crash. you recorded it. there's a lot of races around there. i just got lucky, that's all. oh, would you call it luck? when one man lay dying and another seven were injured-- and instead of calling 911, you filmed it? like a ramen noodle- every-night budget.

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do you really believe no one saw the real driver? he took off at the height of the chaos. and everybody was in a state of shock. how you doing, matt? almost there. it's a good thing i keep amita's image enhancement algorithms on hand. colby: so i figured out why clippard was in the trunk. it's a street racing hazing ritual called "trunking," where they make the new guy ride in the trunk before he can sit up front. now why would they do that? i guess it's tougher to clean the vomit off the front seat. matt: tasty. all right, here we go, it's a pretty good look at the guy. megan: so this is the real driver. now we have to hope that somebody recognizes him. i do. it's frank fisher-- the guy that sold the ultralock to kyle clippard. and we still have him in custody? released him this morning. (engine revving) (tires screeching) this is really starting to frost my shorts. the scandinavian flick didn't work. ray, i take it that's a racing term, and not what it sounds like.

yeah, it's another name for the inertia drift maneuver. a driver comes into a curve, turns out of it, then he whips back in, using the centripetal force on the back half of his car to slide it out and drift. we know there was another person in that car. frank fisher. but he weighs 140, not 260. and our math model is telling us that there's 120 pounds unaccounted for here. i know, and that's significant. 120 pounds i can't account for. maybe it wasn't dead weight. if this was a race, and there was a second car-- you're talking about a collision. the extra force came not from weight in the car... but from the briefest contact between two vehicles. hi, charlie. ray. hey. hi. so, uh, how's the analysis going? it's going good-- we got racing, we got we got drifting... maybe some demolition derby. hope you don't mind my watching. i'm very fascinated with this stuff. it is fascinating. been a long time since i took engineering in, uh, college, and, uh, i think i lost a lot. thousands of years ago, we started with rocks, sticks and bones.

now we got computer chips, spacecraft, nuclear fusion. it's not just human nature to understand the world, but also to interact with it. you see, that's why we build machines. because that's the way we interact with the world. i mean that's our, uh, that's the way we play. (quiet laugh) i'm starting a seminar next week on current challenges in mechanical engineering. you should come sit in. no, no. i think i'm a little old for college. i was a mechanic before i started. i-i started out as 30. but, hey, where wouldn't you be older than most other people? a rest home? uh, ray-ray, hey, so, just get back to, uh... wait minute. fisher is gone. along with a new street car he doesn't own. damn it. he knew we were coming back. i'll put it out to the police. thanks. kyle clippard woke up. i just wanted to ride along. see what it's like. but, kyle, why? looked like fun.

frank said to get in the trunk. it was a race? yeah, with some guy frank knew. i-i think he called him ernie. ernie fuller, right. and what caused the accident? no idea. last thing i remember was being in the trunk, and wishing i wasn't. kyle, somebody hurt you after the accident-- do you have any idea who? what?! isn't this from the crash? somebody tried to kill you. why? i-i wasn't even driving. you looking into the hit-and-run? yeah, the kaufmans, the couple that died. they have no living relatives. nobody to push the case once it went cold. yeah.

you know, david, when i was out on that freighter, i kept thinking if i die out here, a lot of questions go unanswered. my story never gets told. i'd just really like to find these people an answer. what about frank fisher? maybe that grill came off a car he used to own? yeah, only he's got an alibi. when they were killed, fisher was out in pomona, winning a nhra-approved race. we gotta find out where that grill came from. yeah, there's something else, too. at the cemetery where they're buried, somebody puts flowers on their grave on the anniversary of the accident. that's somebody with a guilty conscience. and another thing: shortly after they died, somebody made an anonymous donation to their church in the amount of $7,000 cash. ♪

(engine revving) without gas, ernie... (overlapping chatter) fisher's over on the right talking with ernie fuller. bring it on, guys. we're going in. we're going in. copy that. damn, man! i'm sorry. i'm really, i'm-- listen to me! (siren whooping) david: fbi! don't move! fbi! i got the driver! i got the driver! agent: you! back here! (car tires squealing) (tires screeching)

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(engine revving)

charlie: the second car hits the crash car and causes it to lose control. it's called a pit maneuver. yeah, i know, i-i've seen it on tv. police cars do it to fleeing vehicles during high-speed chases. you watch police chases on tv? hell, yeah. you don't? download 'em off the net. all variables accounted for-- the end result matches the sample. and that is geek speak for "bingo." ernie, everybody we talk to says you and frank race all the time. you were racing him the night of the coffee shop crash, weren't you? you don't know that. no? no, frank didn't tell you, and nobody else saw me there. nice one, ernie. i want you to look at something. what is that? i mean, how'd you get that? who filmed that? is that film? doesn't matter. that's what happened. frank's car killed a man. but you caused it. it was an accident. i wasn't trying to hit frank.

he's my friend; i helped him build that car. where is frank now? i have no idea. hey, larry! a little time off from the monastery? uh, actually, i'm letting the monks take a little break from me. how are your own meditations coming along? it's hard to say. you know, work keeps getting in the way. you know, actually, my own state of quiescence has been disturbed by this rather indelible image. a boot print to be more precise. from the clippard beating. yeah, charlie described told me about the case. these would be the photos of the tread marks on the young man's face? only have a partial. it's kind of hard to get a good match on the boot print. ah, well, enter fleinhardt. have you, by any chance, heard of a study from the university of sheffield, in england? now they're using mathematical techniques to extrapolate full boot and shoe prints from partial samples. (phone rings) larry, that'd be great, man. there'll always be an england. sinclair.

okay, thanks. (sighs) they just found frank fisher. (door opens) hey, do you have a minute to, uh, take a look at something? secret spy stuff? i'm kidding. what is it? well, i'm trying to track down the grill on the car from the cold case hit-and-run 'cause the same grill was on the car that frank fisher was driving when it hit the coffee shop. and that's got to be more than a coincidence, right? well, yeah, i mean, you know, it's possible that fisher could have just found the grill at a junkyard, but, yeah, i'm hoping that there's more to it, although... i know you really don't put much stock in hope, do you? colby, there have been math problems i've worked on that have gone unsolved for hundreds of years, so believe me, man, i'm all about hope. all right, well, good, because i keep thinking that there are things the cold case can tell us about the recent crash, and the recent crash might help us solve the cold case. yeah, so like a unifying theory. no, i think that's worth testing. well, here's what i have so far-- a list of cars that were on the road three years ago with that grill and then a list of known street racers.

you're checking for a match. right, basic cop stuff. but what i was wondering is if there might be some other kind of search you might recommend. you know, just a bigger one. just throw in more data. you never know where you're going to find connectivity, so think of anything you can-- not just the cars and their owners but people from both incidents who don't seem directly involved. then friends and family and witnesses and... fisher was found by a maintenance man, kicked in the head, same as kyle clippard. yeah, it happened fairly recently. even looks like the same boot print. fisher didn't have any defensive wounds, so it's got to be someone he knew, right? i'll spring the news on ernie fuller, see if he has any idea where fisher might have been. uh-huh. hey, david, what have you got? larry's getting an image of the boot print from both crime scenes and i'm questioning those crash witnesses again, using what we learned from the video. how about you, colby? just running links between the cold case and the fisher crash. good. this could all be a random coincidence, but... no, these deaths are related somehow. hold it lightly, like a bird,

then just let it fly straight to the nest. now, you see? unfortunately, my bird keeps attempting to nest in the hallway. fleinhardt, i hear you got a sweet little ride. yeah, a 1931 ford roadster. nice. you got to bring it around. yeah, well, maybe in time. only three runs in the computer lab and we got a sufficient abrogated score. well, it's a lot easier to extrapolate on these partial boot prints, now that we've got a second sample. too bad a second person had to die for us to get it. gentlemen, we have the results. diet? oh, come... that's... you know, frank knew a lot of people. i got no idea where he's hanging out. yeah, how about his car? he had a custom grill on there. you know where he got it? no, his grill-- he could have picked that up anywhere. okay, you have to ask him and if you can't find him, that's not my problem. oh, we found him. frank's dead. what? he crashed? somebody beat him to death.

special agent david sinclair-- fbi. i want to ask you a few more questions. you know, ernie, the guy that killed frank also beat a teenager at the crash site. did frank know somebody at that coffee shop? uh, maybe, yeah. it was his idea to race and he always liked to just race by people he knew. like who? mostly hot chicks. and, um, this dude he knew, who was like an old friend of his. we have a video of the incident that shows you 30 seconds after the crash, walking toward the car. what happened when you got there? i went over to... look at the driver, but i didn't touch him. somebody did. tell me who it was. (sighs) okay, if i adjust the translational and rotational invariance... charlie: and then generate an edge direction histogram... and that, my young friends, is a boot.

measures out to a size 12. that's one big dude. the dude used to race a lot, but then he quit and he said frank should stop, too, but, for some reason, it really pissed frank off. (laughing): frank would just... he would just, like, go blowing by him and yell stuff. sam was dead. we were all angry. it could have been any of us. but it was one guy. you give me a name or i will arrest you right here for obstruction. this is so weird. hey, megan. yeah? the grill from the cold case, it was for a 1994 honda civic. uh-huh. check this out. i just found a known street racer who owned that identical car, who was present at the coffee shop crash, but he wasn't one of the drivers. ernie just gave me a name. how much you want to bet it's the same guy? (phone rings) megan, i know. i'm right here. hey, the guy who usually works this route-- where is he?

apparently, he comes here every day. hmm. robert lowell, do you know why we're here? yes, i know. bobby: three years ago, i was racing around the silver lake reservoir. i hit two people. and i killed them. every night i go to sleep, i see their faces, how they looked at me right before the car hit them. i took my car apart, and i sold the pieces. right. the grill to fisher. the money i got from the parts-- i sent it all to the church those people belonged to. you put the flowers on the graves. why don't you tell us what happened at that coffee house? (tires screeching) people were running everywhere.

it was terrible. i was just looking to see who was hurt. i saw the kid near the car. i was sure that he was the driver, that he had done this... and i just exploded. megan: but the kid wasn't the driver. frank was. he told me yesterday. i realized i nearly killed the wrong guy. and then frank tells me... he was racing around the corner because of me. i felt like i was in a daze. then i hit him and he went down. and i just kept kicking him. this has got to stop. i'll, uh, request a suicide watch.

hey, don. hey, buddy. want some coffee? yeah, that'd be great, thanks. just want to let you know that i turned down the dc job. oh, yeah? so that's what you wanted, huh? i mean, what i want is to stay here and work with you guys-- people i know. but i know that decision's not entirely up to me, so... all right. i'll check into it.

♪ charlie: i mean, my advice to you has always been never to concentrate on coincidences. but for once, at least in this case, everything was connected. yeah, but, uh, the root cause was meaningless, huh? yeah, reckless driving. that's crazy. so, what, are you writing that book? yeah. the work is pretty much almost done. i just have to write a preface and simplify some of the math passages. is that dad? yeah. did you invite him down here? hello, boys. hey, boys, meet calsci's newest student. what do you mean? you're taking a class? no, i was just auditing. ray: alan just got through his first day of elements of mechanical engineering. yeah. wait a second, you're telling me that i've spent years trying to get you interested in advanced mathematics and now, suddenly, you're taking a class?

it depends on who teaches it. don: oh, psych! ooh, that's low. that's cold. ray: it's got nothing to do with me. what would most people rather do? solve the riemann hypothesis or build lasers and robots? don & alan: lasers and robots. of course. algebraic geometry, ergodic theory, automorphic forms-- the list goes on and on. you people have no idea what you're missing out on. yeah, and we'd like to keep it that way, charlie. so what, you're getting a degree or something? well, actually... i'm just having fun. captioning sponsored by cbs paramount network television and toyota. moving forward. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org